


a migraine is a fair trade

by rhale



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Magic Fingers, POV Ray Palmer, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:35:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23033320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhale/pseuds/rhale
Summary: The first time it happens, Ray assumes it’s a fluke.The second time, he isn’t any the wiser.But the third time — the third time, with Mick at his right side, ice pick driving into the center of his brain and burn-scarred fingers pushing hard and sharp into the meat of his palms, Ray is forced to admit that Mick knows something he doesn’t.
Relationships: Ray Palmer/Mick Rory
Comments: 18
Kudos: 162





	a migraine is a fair trade

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm pretty sure there's no magic pressure point in your palm that can instantly cure a migraine.
> 
> But let's pretend there is.
> 
> Also, the timing for this is vaguely early seasons, mostly because I haven't seen the whole series so I don't promise a lot of canon fidelity, here.

The first time it happens, Ray assumes it’s a fluke. 

The second time, he isn’t any the wiser.

But the third time — the third time, with Mick at his right side, ice pick driving into the center of his brain and burn-scarred fingers pushing hard and sharp into the meat of his palms, Ray is forced to admit that Mick knows something he doesn’t.

Ray had never had migraines before the Waverider. He’d had tension headaches, sure. Headaches from dehydration, from too much (or too little) caffeine, from forgetting to eat because he’d been in his laboratory for hours on end and had let the minor inconveniences of his body get away from him until they weren’t so minor and they refused to be ignored anymore.

But never a migraine. Not until the Waverider.It’s a pretty small price to pay for the privilege to travel through time and space, he figures. For seeing the things he’s seen. Doing the things he’s done.

And it isn’t like it’s every hop. No, most jumps don’t do it. Most jumps scramble his speech centers, flip his stomach, make him feel like he’s sneezing up duck feathers.

No, it isn’t until the third migraine, the third grunt, the third time a thumb presses into his hand and slides the ice pick out of his skull that Ray even knows there’s something to notice. Which makes him feel sluggish and stupid in a way that he hasn’t felt since kindergarten, when his fingers wouldn’t keep up with the knots his brain wanted to tie in his shoelaces. Because three times are a pattern. Three times are undeniable. Too consistent to be coincidence.

Mick doesn’t say anything about it. Doesn’t even look at Ray when it happens.He just waits until the Waverider settles beneath their seats, reaches out with one enormous, scarred hand, and unerringly jams his thumb right into the bundle of nerves that make every muscle in Ray’s neck go weak with relief while the pain drains out of his head.

And Ray can’t figure out how he _knows_.

Well, it probably isn’t all that hard to figure out when it’s happening, and it isn’t every time that Mick takes the jump seat next to him. But it never happens when he’s at the other end of the line. It never happens when Nate’s grinning at Ray from the seat next to him, stoked as hell, making sure that Ray isn’t the only person geeked out over getting to travel to some other fantastic time and place while Sara and Amaya look like they’re reciting supply lists in their heads.

Too serious by half, given that they’re on a ship that could take them to any point in the distant past or future.

The next time that Mick drops into the space next to Ray, the next time the muscled mass of that body fills the neighboring seat like a volcano just about to erupt, implacable and inevitable, Ray wants to ask but he doesn’t do it. He’s in data-gathering mode. He wants to put his theory together. Wants to test his hypothesis without skewing anything.

Ray steadfastly ignores the little voice that says he just doesn’t want to risk driving Mick out of that seat. Doesn’t want to chance it that he’ll get to the end of the jump with a migraine and no hand wrapped around his own. No _dark-sharp-sweet_ touch stealing the pain from Ray’s head like he’s stolen money and weapons and priceless artwork from hundreds of others before him.

A coil of warmth slides around Ray’s chest, dangerously close to his heart, when he considers the fact that Mick only steals from him what he’s happy to give away.

And at the end of the jump, it happens. The Waverider shudders into place, into time, in twenty-fourth century Milan where a rift is waiting to threaten the timeline, and pain blossoms behind Ray’s eyes like a supernova in the center of his brain.

It’s startling. Breathtaking in the worst way.And Gideon’s voice hasn’t even announced their arrival when rough, calloused fingers slide over the sensitive flesh of Ray’s inner wrist and a shimmering wave washes over Ray’s body, tension building in every nerve, mouth going dry with the anticipation of not-pain feeling enough like pleasure that Ray’s almost shocked to note the coiling heat building low in his hips, the flush he can feel rising in his cheeks, the tips of his ears.

And then relief.

Mick’s fingers — surprisingly deft, surprisingly nimble and clever and calming and achingly perfect — are pushing on that spot in Ray’s palm and the pain disappears like Mick scared it away.

Ray bites down hard on his lip. He tries to hold the sound back, but there’s a whimper. A soft, helpless sound of his desperate relief and Ray can’t look at Mick, won’t look at Mick, but the slightest twitch in that strong hand lets Ray know without a doubt that Mick heard him.

“Thanks,” Ray says and it’s barely a whisper.

Mick just grunts, but there’s a ghost of a squeeze, those fingers against his wrist again before Mick lets go and grumbles something about a snack.

Ray closes his eyes. He can’t watch him go, but it’s all he can see behind his eyelids until Nate’s voice breaks through the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears.

“You okay, man?”

By the time Ray opens his eyes again, flashes that guileless grin up at Nate and nods, he’s shoved down the thought that the migraines aren’t just an acceptable trade-off for getting to be on the Waverider.

They’re an acceptable trade-off for getting to have Mick’s hands on him.

~~~

Sometime, in between the trips to feudal Japan, King Arthur’s Court, and meeting his heroes in every war-torn country in the entire history of the world, Ray’s anticipation before a jump shifts from ‘What will I see, who will I meet, what adventure awaits?’ to ‘Will Mick touch me this time?’

It’s all he can think about.

He finds himself drifting closer to Mick. Taking up every inch of space the other man will let him have. He sits with him in the evenings when Mick can be found in the mess, pesters him to join him, Nate, and Amaya for movie nights. He orbits Mick like a planet around a star but it doesn’t matter.

Mick doesn’t touch him.

Mick doesn’t touch him at movie night, when Ray bribes him with popcorn and chocolate and settles in so close he can feel Mick along his side like a furnace, when even Nate has his leg carelessly sprawled so his knee touches Ray’s. Mick doesn’t touch him when Ray passes him a bottle of beer, trying to brush his fingers along Mick’s, trying to see if he’d get the same shiver he does after a headache-inducing jump. Mick doesn’t touch him when they pass each other in the hall, or shuffle by one another for the bathroom.

At any given moment, Ray’s got about an acre of skin that Mick just isn’t touching. Ever.

At least, not until Ray’s paid for it with agony exploding behind his eyes. And it isn’t really like he expected to get something for nothing. He never does.

And it isn’t like Ray’s spent weeks trying to figure out what causes the migraines. It isn’t like he’s trying to see if he can cause one on purpose.

That would be ridiculous. And pathetic.

And if they’re happening more often it isn’t like Ray is relieved. Or grateful for it. That’d be insane.

And he’s carefully, carefully _not_ hoping for another migraine tomorrow — a chance to feel those calluses against his wrist, a chance to store up another memory of Mick _reaching_ for him — when Mick grunts at him from across the table they’re sharing in the mess, raises a brow and says, “You sure you wanna drink that, Haircut?”

Ray blinks down at the bottle of beer he was raising to his mouth, frozen in the middle of the motion, lips slightly pursed and eyes going wide as he stares back at Mick.

“Yes?” Okay, that sounds a little more like a question than he intended.

Mick lifts one of those boulders he calls a shoulder and quirks his brow again. It probably means ‘You’re an idiot’ but there’s something nearly affectionate about it and Ray’s mouth goes dry so fast that he almost can’t wait to hear why he shouldn’t drink that beer before he wants to take a long pull from it.

Wait — does Mick just want him to leave?

“You’re gonna pay for it tomorrow,” Mick says once the shrug is over and he’s settled back, languid in his chair.

Ray puts the bottle on the table and he’s wearing confusion all over his face, he knows he is. “It’s one beer, Mick.” A frown. “I’m not that much of a lightweight.”

Okay, yes, that brow quirk definitely means ‘You’re an idiot’. It’s easier to read on the second time through.

“The jump’s 215 years, Haircut.” And Mick says it slowly, like Ray needs the extra time to process it and okay maybe he does because it _still_ doesn’t make any _sense_.

At least, it doesn’t make any sense until Mick gestures abstractly in the direction of Ray’s head and the pieces fall into place.

“The migraines.” He’s guessing blind. “It’s the beer?” His brows pinch together. But that doesn’t fit. He’s definitely had a beer before jumps where there wasn’t a migraine.

It’s why he’d dismissed alcohol as a factor. And longer jumps didn’t seem any worse than shorter jumps, in terms of frequency.

“Thought you were supposed to be a genius, Haircut.” Mick’s voice is rough but there’s actual concern there and if this moment gets any more surreal Ray’s going to assume he’s actually in the med bay, in a chemically induced coma. “You get a headache every time we have a jump between two hundred and three hundred and fifty years the day after you drink one of those special beers of yours.”

Ray’s more than a little stunned. He hadn’t even considered that there might be more than one factor — or that it might be a _range_ rather than a _threshold_ and what the hell kind of scientist is he anyway? He stares down at the bottle — cheerfully marked ‘Gluten Free’ — and he’s still trying to wrap his head around the idea that _Mick_ had figured it out before he did when he raises the bottle to his mouth —

And is abruptly stopped by those fingers, that hand wrapped tight around his wrist and Mick’s sudden, frustrated growl and this is _bad_ , this is really bad because Ray’s been so keyed up for the slightest brush of Mick’s fingers that a firm, purposeful touch makes him want to sink to his knees on the kitchen _floor_ and sob against the inside of Mick’s _thigh_ and —

“The hell did I just say?” It’s Mick’s turn to furrow his brow and he’s still holding onto Ray’s wrist and something fails in Ray’s brain. Something important. Some firewall that was meant to keep most of Ray’s Mick-related thoughts away from his speech centers.

Because Mick hasn’t let go and Ray’s hearing himself say “It’s worth it,” and something complicated is happening in Mick’s eyes.

And Mick isn’t stupid. Ray used to think so. Everyone did and most of them still do. But Mick’s been too right about too many things, too present and on the ball for Ray to believe it anymore.

Mick isn’t stupid, so it’s a test of some kind when he says, “Didn’t think you liked beer that much, Haircut,” all mild and casual, slipping his hand from Ray’s wrist, and every klaxon in Ray’s brain is going off.

_Mick knows. Mick knows. Mick knows._

“I don’t.” It’s a whisper and it’s weak and Mick’s eyes are still pinning Ray in place and there’s a whimper trapped in Ray’s throat and — oh god — if it slips out the embarrassment might actually kill him. One more time, Ray lifts the bottle to his lips, settles the smooth rim against his mouth and starts to tip it back.

It shatters against the kitchen floor in a spray of sweet-smelling fermentation and shards of glass. Ray knows that the rest of the team will be annoyed to find it there but Mick’s hands are tangling in the front of his shirt and Ray’s getting lifted out of his seat and he cannot bring himself to care.

“There are easier ways to get my hands on you, Palmer.” The surname is a weird sort of sideways tilt that makes Ray’s stomach flip and he has no idea why it should affect him at all.

“Not that I’ve found.” And wow, that filter is really just entirely _gone_.

Mick grunts again, acknowledgement or realization or _indigestion_ , Ray really can’t tell, and then he has Ray pinned back against the table, feet slipping slightly on the spilled beer, feeling the sharp edge of the table top like a neon sign saying ‘NOT DREAMING’.

And all of a sudden it hits Ray how _miraculous_ it is that no one has walked in since Mick grabbed his wrist. Luck like that couldn’t possibly hold out for much longer. “Bunk?” Ray says and decides it’s not a squawk and wow that’s a lot more forward than it sounded in his head where he was thinking that it might be nice to have a door between this conversation and the rest of the team.

But Mick just grins that same grin he saves for explosions and frosting and hauls Ray back upright, shoving him a little toward the door. “All right, Haircut.”

Ray has this thing where if he thinks about walking it’s impossible to do it like a normal person, but he keeps looping back around to it. There’s a part of him that wants to sprint for Mick’s room, but he knows that’s a bad idea — that’s the sort of desperately uncool move that would make Mick change his mind about the whole thing, Ray’s sure of it. And maybe Ray had meant they should talk in more privacy, but a glance backward says that Mick is prowling toward his quarters with the sort of predatory grace that already promises sex if Ray doesn’t screw it up. And now he’s stuck trying to figure out how to walk from the kitchen to a bed without tripping over his own feet or making it obvious what’s about to happen if anyone else sees them.

What he hopes is about to happen.

Maybe Mick just wants to talk.

Ray glances back again and there’s an amused twist to Mick’s mouth before he grips Ray’s hips from behind and grinds once, twice against his backside and — wow, okay, no Mick definitely doesn’t seem too keen on talking.

The fact that Ray is stumbling into Mick’s room without having seen any other member of the Legends makes his brain spin up a background thread to wonder if he should be worried — but that doesn’t last long against Mick. Mick stalks in behind him, lands heavily on his bunk, and then he’s pulling Ray into his lap like Ray’s no more trouble to move than a rag doll.

The searing bolt of lust it drives through Ray’s gut is both unexpected and entirely welcome.

And okay, Ray’s more than a little out of his depth. He’d been aiming his sights as high as he’d dared: getting to feel Mick’s hands on him. Getting them on him in a purely platonic, entirely practical and innocent way, even, and now the spread of his thighs across Mick’s lap is blasting ‘SEX’ through his brain at top volume and they haven’t even _kissed_.

Oh god, kissing. Will there be kissing? Does Mick kiss?

Ray’s dying to kiss him.

Mick’s hands skim up his sides like he’s learning the dimensions of a safe and then there’s one scarred, meaty paw tangling fingers in the hair just above Ray’s neck and he’s twisting and — _fuck_ it feels so good. Shivers and goose flesh skate over his skin just like the first brush of Mick’s fingertips against his wrist and how does Mick know all of this about him?

Can he tell just by looking?

The tight clench of fingers in his hair means that Mick can tilt Ray’s head to the side and drop his mouth against the sensitive skin of the side of his neck without worrying that Ray’s fidgeting will get in the way, and floods of pleasure pour out from that point of contact.

Okay, so sex is on the table. Probably. Probably on the table.

Ray lifts his hands from where they were hanging uselessly by his sides and slides them up Mick’s chest, feeling the weave of his shirt, the heat pouring off of his body, the muscles he hasn’t seen since Russia and that’s probably weird, right? It’s weird to think about being tortured and go ‘Well, at least I got to see Mick shirtless’.

Mick’s other hand wraps itself around Ray’s hip and he’s never thought of himself as dainty or anything, but he’s getting close with the way Mick’s hand just engulfs the curve of that bone. He tugs Ray forward and Ray slides against the bulge in Mick’s lap so sweetly that he can’t keep the keening out of his throat anymore.

“Mick,” Ray whines, and oh no. Oh, he’s ruined it. Mick kind of had this whole hot silent thing going and now that Ray is talking there’s no way he’s going to want to —

“That’s it, Haircut.”

Well, Ray is nothing if not adaptable. He rolls his hips forward, clinging to the front of Mick’s shirt like, well, like any number of women probably have, and he’s never been this hard in his life, he’s sure of it. And at least he isn’t entirely alone, there. Ray might not know how hard Mick’s ever been, but there’s a ridge in his jeans that slides against Ray’s and he would happily sign up for a migraine every day for the rest of his life if they all turn out like this.

Mick’s mouth is still mauling the base of Ray’s neck, he’s tugging his shirt aside and sucking bruising marks into his collarbone, his shoulder, and Ray wants to see it. Wants to see if it looks as hot as it feels, as good as he imagines it will.

It’s all he can think about, the only image behind Ray’s eyes, and he grinds forward against Mick’s hardon helplessly, pressing over and over against the base of his own cock and oh god he’s probably going to come like this — touching Mick’s shoulders and writhing and going off in his pants like a teenager.

Or how Ray imagines teenagers go off. He wasn’t doing anything of the kind until college and even that had been overwhelming and devastating.

But Mick solves the problem in his own way, hand letting go of Ray’s hair — and he doesn’t whimper when Mick releases him, he _doesn’t_ — to slide down his back and dip beneath the waistband of Ray’s pants and trace a single finger over Ray’s suddenly aching hole.

Now Ray doesn’t care at all about imagining the bruises on his own neck, his brain is full of nothing but the idea of Mick pushing up inside him, flipping him over, pinning Ray down, fucking him until he’s gotten what he wants and — okay, that’s not really staving off the coming-in-his-pants thing.

“I want —“ he tries, and Mick growls before he can say another word. It’s an encouraging growl, clearly meant to make him spit it out, but the rumble through Mick’s chest makes Ray’s hips go liquid and it’s all over.

He comes with an embarrassing shout, driving his ass back against Mick’s hand and dropping his forehead against Mick’s shoulder in shame and helpless bonelessness.

Why isn’t there ever a time aberration when it would really come in handy?

It takes a solid minute before Ray notices that Mick’s hips are moving under his, that his fingers are pressing bruises into the curve of his ass, and that his breathing has gone completely ragged.

Mick sits up, tips Ray sideways and backward onto the bed and attacks his clothes with a ferocity bordering on homicidal. Seems only polite to help. Ray lifts his hands to shrug out of his shirt and gets them immediately smacked out of the way for his trouble.

“You — stay still.” Mick grinds out between clenched teeth, pupils blown so wide his irises are just missing, cheeks reddened and splotchy and it shouldn’t have been so fucking hot, not when Ray has already come, not when his own orgasm is still wet and sticky inside his clothes.

The knife is a surprise, but really in retrospect it shouldn’t be. The flash of metal and the whisper of sliced fabric combine with the suddenly cool air on Ray’s skin to make him shiver and his cock twitches inside his rapidly disappearing clothing way before it should’ve been possible.

His legs are bare and spread beneath Mick’s callused hands, pushing the limits of Ray’s own flexibility and making him feel so exposed, so vulnerable he almost can’t stand it. Wouldn’t be able to stand it if it weren’t for the hungry look on Mick’s face, the way he grunts like something has hit him in the chest when he looks at the mess between Ray’s legs.

Then Mick’s fingers are dragging through Ray’s come, dipping between his legs and — oh, _god_.

Mick pushing a finger into Ray’s body, using Ray’s own come to ease the way, well, it’s a filthy kind of hot that Ray had no idea he was into even a second before it happened. But he is. Apparently he really, really is.

“Gonna fuck you,” Mick growls and it’s somehow a question despite the complete lack of interrogative intonation.

“Yes — _please_.” The begging earns Ray a twist of Mick’s fingers and another deep thrust that finds his prostate and oh, shit, no it’s too soon, it’s way too soon but it’s so good. Pleasure like pain deep inside him, watching Mick’s open mouth while he pants, feeling the rough slide of his finger and yep, that’s his cock getting hard again.

Mick dips his head, drags the broad flat of his tongue from the base of Ray’s dick to the tip, punching a moan from Ray’s chest and sending violent shivers of pleasure through his rattled nerves. While Ray is shivering out of his skin, Mick slips a third finger into his body and finds a rhythm that makes Ray desperate way faster than he should’ve been.

“Mick — now — “ Ray whimpers between devastating passes of those fingers over his prostate and could almost keen when Mick shakes his head.

“Need lube.” He’s scrambling next to the bed, Ray’s too out of his mind, too fucked-out already to see where he’s looking, and then sitting up, triumphant and holding something that looks pristine and new and something about that snags in Ray’s brain.

Was that — did Mick acquire that just for this? Just for him?

All of a sudden he’s on the brink of coming again and he still hasn’t gotten Mick’s cock anywhere interesting.

Ray’s going to blame it on that desperation, that fear of ending this before he’s gotten half the things his fevered imagination is hoping for, when he blurts out, “Kiss me.”

There’s less than half a second where Mick freezes, hesitates and Ray is staggered by his own idiocy. Then it’s over. The horrible frozen moment passes and Mick is bending down, bracing on his clean hand and tucking his forearm underneath Ray’s neck, spreading his naked thighs further apart with the rough scratch of his own denim-covered legs, and oh god yes that’s his mouth.

Mick kisses like Ray’s hiding something behind his lips, something that Mick desperately wants. His mouth is a little chapped, a little rough, and the scrape of his stubble is sending shivers directly to Ray’s tormented cock.

When Mick finally parts his lips, finally sneaks his tongue out to tease along Ray’s mouth, Ray’s vision goes white. Some distant part of his mind is aware that he’s whimpering, that he’s trying not to need to breathe, that he’s writhing in Mick’s lap, spread backward over his bed and none of it matters as much as the stroke of Mick’s tongue, the slide of his lips, the careful, purposeful way he unlocks every last defense Ray has managed to hold onto.

“Fuck,” Mick groans, resting his forehead against Ray’s and maybe it’s the oxygen deprivation but hearing that intensity in Mick’s voice, feeling the way he’s rocking against Ray’s ass in his lap is the best thing that’s ever happened to Ray.

He drops another, briefer, kiss onto Ray’s slack mouth then sits up again, popping open the lube with one hand and slicking his fingers in some sort of sleight of hand that Ray would never be able to pull off, no matter how many magic kits he’d played with as a kid.

Then he’s pressing inside again, slicking and smoothing and carefully preparing Ray’s body and — sudden and horrifying — tears are pricking at the back of Ray’s eyes. Mick’s just — he’s not treating Ray like he’s made of glass but he’s being careful. Gentle. Not pushing too hard or too roughly, making sure that the first press of his cock — assuming they ever get there — will be nothing but pleasure.

Mick waits until Ray’s eyes have focused again, until he’s watching again, and he thumbs open his fly, fishes out an erection that would make Mapplethorpe _weep_ , and slicks himself before tossing the lube away.

“Last chance,” Mick growls and Ray can’t even parse the sentence.

Last chance for what? To lose his mind and bail on something he’d never dreamed he could be allowed to have? Even if it’s just once?

“ _Please_.”

And that’s it. Mick’s pressing forward, blunt head of his cock huge and impossible against Ray’s body and he’s breathing through it, bearing down and pressing back as well as he can without any leverage on his side, unable to take his eyes off Mick’s face because it’s incredible.

Ray used to believe that Mick could keep his face so blank because there wasn’t anything there to see. Even once he knew that Mick wasn’t stupid, he still thought that the fire starter didn’t show emotion on his face because he didn’t really feel a whole lot. Not much past anger or generalized excitement or the grief he’d carried after Snart had — and Ray has never been so happy to be proven wrong.

Because if Mick walks around with an impassive mask most of the time, he can’t keep anything off his face when he’s fucking Ray. The look in his eyes as he stares down at him can only be described as _worshipful_. His eyes are open, everything behind them completely unshuttered and when his brow furrows, intensity and need and devotion blazing across his features, Ray doesn’t know how he’s going to survive it when the shields go back up.

“Mick,” Ray begs, trying to pull the other man down to him, trying to convey everything he’s been carrying around with the desperate brush of his mouth on Mick’s face. But he needs him to know. Needs him to know that he’s not alone. That the devotion, the affection, the terrifying need isn’t something that’s unreciprocated.

“I know, Haircut.” Mick’s voice is tight and he snaps his hips faster, finding Ray’s prostate with unerring accuracy. He lets Ray pet him, lets him stroke along his neck, lets him marvel in how naked Mick has managed to be without taking off any of his clothes.

Seriously, Ray is naked as the day he was born, Mick only opened his fly and got his cock out but Ray feels like he should cover Mick, protect him because he looks so fucking vulnerable he almost can’t stand it.

“Me too,” Mick whispers, lips against the side of Ray’s throat, teeth digging in to add some sting to the sweet sound of those words and that’s it, that’s enough.

Ray convulses, spilling between their bodies, clenching down on Mick’s cock and riding the waves of his aftershocks with dizzying clarity. “Come on, Mick. Come in me.”

Like he’d only been waiting for an invitation, Mick speeds up his thrusts, clamps his hands on Ray’s hips and drags him onto his cock over and over again and comes with a pained-sounding groan that he smothers in Ray’s chest.

The moments afterward are tense while they catch their breath. Ray wants to lift Mick’s face, wants to see his eyes but he’s terrified of what he’ll look like now that they’ve both gotten off. Eventually, though, Mick is easing out of Ray’s body, finding a washcloth and wiping the worst of the mess off of the pair of them, letting Ray wonder if he’s supposed to leave — then, urgently, _how_ he’s supposed to leave when his clothes are in a shredded pile on Mick’s _floor_ — when Mick drops heavily into the bunk and tugs Ray over to cuddle against his chest.

It’s weirdly peaceful.

Ray can’t leave it alone. “Does this mean —"

“Yes.” Mick’s voice is firm, cutting Ray off and it makes Ray feel all warm and snuggly — even more than the literal cuddling currently happening — but it doesn’t actually count as an answer since Mick can’t really read Ray’s mind. As far as Ray knows.

“I just want to be sure I understand.” It’s softer, and Mick doesn’t cut him off.

Instead he sighs, squeezes Ray a little tighter, and buries his mouth in Ray’s hair before he answers. “I know. Don’t make me talk about it.” His rough hand is shockingly gentle where it cradles the back of Ray’s neck.

And god, Ray wants to talk about it. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to leave anything open-ended, open to misinterpretation. He doesn’t want to decide that this means Mick is his — is _his_ , if it doesn’t mean that. But he also doesn’t want to assume he can’t have it, now that he’s had his sixth impossible thing since breakfast.

Mick drops another kiss in Ray’s hair, his thumb smoothing the skin on his neck, and he tugs Ray impossibly closer. And suddenly, it doesn’t seem open-ended.

Suddenly, it seems clear that Mick is making an offer. That he’ll take anything Ray wants to give him. Migraines, skin, and the heat of his body pressing Mick back into the bunk.

“Thief,” Ray says, illogically. He's doing that thing that frustrated so many of his partners, where he skips several paragraphs of connection and train of thought just to blurt out the next thing that won’t leave his tongue alone.

But Mick gets it. “Damn straight, Haircut.”

And Ray doesn’t worry.

Except about the clothes. He’s going to need clothes.

Eventually.


End file.
